only going to do this if the rest of the community supports it and helps build it. Needs to be a transparent and community run thing to be worthwhile.

I unfortunately know jack about web or software development.

I have offered to hire or help offset the costs but so far have not made any headway.

I am hopeful things will come together around it.

also, I am not giving Tom any flack (just to be clear) and I think each TD needs to make their own decision on what works for them.

I personally wont be running any IFPA events in 2018, but that is a personal decision for me to make just like it is Toms decision to make.
I do think when the largest public events in a state are no longer IFPA, then it makes it kind of silly for the whole system to happen at all based on a minority subset (much like it is silly to allow events to be partial IFPA based on the players that buy in if a TD wants to do that), but that is the fractures the IFPA has set in motion with the new rules.

I guess it will be interesting to see how this experiment plays out. For me it sucked away most of the fun I used to get from competitive pinball.

Ahhhh I thought you had people that stepped up right away back in April for you guys to get this going . . .

"I know people much smarter than I are working on an emulation of the current system. I hope something can be made that works identical to the current system, satisfies the desires of the vast majority of the state based competitive community, and is well received /incorporated. I really enjoy the state based camaraderie, competition, and rankings from the current SCS setup and would liek ot to remain as accurate and worthwhile as it is now."

If there are people on your side that need some assistance don't hesitate to reach out. We'll do whatever we can to help.

yeah, thus far the people that said they would help have either been too busy (totally understandable as real life comes before pinball) or not been able to make much headway.

I even tried to hire it out but the quote I got was crazy high.

Hopefully someone with some web/software development skill in the pinball world will be able to help out.

I was hoping to have something built by now so I could back enter all of 2017 events to beta test a new system.
Thanks for the offer to assist and if I find someone able to make it happen, I will point them in your direction.

If you want to offer a hosting fee for WI based non-ifpa events system then let me know. Obviously that is easier than an emulation of a current system (dont say sure, $1 per person per event cause we both know that is not what I mean, lol).

Actually Hilton has not given me any problems what so ever.

I probably shouldn't have said flack because that is not accurate.
More like players are concerned and voicing their opinions about the subject.
This is not coming from Hilton but the WI pinball community as a whole.

I clicked on the link and got this

IMG_2797 (resized).PNG

Try this:

http://tiltforums.com/t/suggestion-for-2018-scs/3163

Thank you.

Between your email tonight and this thread being bumped, and me catching up on all that we missed, we should chat sometime soon.

I need to know if I'm going to hold, "THE MOST GINORMOUS CASUAL pinball TOURNAMENT in the UNIVERSE OMG WUT!!!!11eleventy!1!" which I'm seriously thinking about naming it, or if we can figure something out. Based on your email and the challenge thing, you may have created a legal loophole that I'm comfortable with.

Which I guess means I should check and ensure we would be the biggest pinball tournament not competing under IFPA points if that happens anyway.

And for anyone armchair quarterbacking your lawyer statements about how I'm an idiot and wrong about Wisconsin law, it doesn't matter to me if you don't understand my reasons for doing things the way that I do, it matters that I do. Additionally, I remain unwilling for various reasons which I think are valid to fully explain the problems we have ran into online. I understand that this seems weird and by doing random Google searches, it appears I must be wrong, but I'm not willing to risk sitting even one night in jail for something as ultimately meaningless in the long term as hosting a pinball tournament. A number of people, including Josh, has spoken with me directly about our issues, and that's what matters.

Oh, and I almost forgot - I'm also in no way opposed to this being a thing that the IFPA does and I understand why they are attempting to do it. I just have personal reservations based on a specific situation for our state, as well as one that is selectively enforced, but has been against us in the past, probably because as we've grown, it's easier to notice us. I actually agree, in principal, with the idea, and hope that a workaround to keep it so that I am comfortable can be had. If not, I completely understand if we can't do it, and hold no ill will against anyone. I honestly don't think it would affect our tournament participation much, nor am I concerned about attendance dropping over it.

I don't think this change is that big of a deal, but unfortunately I do think it will impact, possibly a lot, the number of 'recruiting' tournaments that draw first-timers. I ran a tournament two weeks ago that had 12 ranked players and 46 first timers. WPPR value was crap (as it should be), but would I pay $58 for it? No. That's an extreme example but hopefully illustrates the point.

Whether or not it should be, the carrot of putting people on the route to being a world ranked player puts butts in front of pins. And some of those people go on to do important things. I can easily think of a dozen people who started in those newbie events who are now fixtures in our local scene, not just participating, but running everything, and ranking was 100% without-a-doubt a big motivator for them.

Lets say you're using matchplay.events and Andreas has a checkbox next to the participants name whether they'd like to have results submitted to IFPA. You ask each of the 58 players if they'd like to pay $1. Lets say you collect $30 and matchplay.events creates IFPA Results based on those 30 players with a check next to their name. How hard is that?

About as hard as paying a dollar?

Guys, give it a rest.

Whoa whoa WTF is this aboot paying a goddamn dollar?!?!

Folks continue to use the "it's just a dollar!!!" argument.

It is not "just a dollar". We have covered this. It's $1 per event per person. It will also have a negative impact on bringing new players into the world of competitive pinball.

Give it a rest.

I still think the best alternative is to host everything for free except for the actual State Championship. Make it a $200 entry fee for the top 16 to play in that event. If these are the players that earned the shot to play in the end of year event then that also assumes that they have won enough money throughout the year to cover their entry fee. It seems fair and simple. 1 event in each state to deal with collecting money, dispensing money, and funneling a % to the national pool.

It will never happen, but that is what I have settled on as the best compromise for this whole thing.

Yep, I really agree with you. Believe it or not!

Yeah, we have covered this and it's still happening.

You guys need to lighten up.

Yeah, you're just not getting it. Keep screaming "it's just a dollar!". Maybe we'll start to understand.

This was proposed to the State Reps when the SCS was first started up. My proposal was $50 per player, and the majority of the feedback I got from the State Reps was that I was asking too much, and that many states wouldn't fill their field of 16 competitors.

Rather than simply pushing my preferred agenda forward, I listened to that feedback and lowered the entry fee to $20 per player.

Dude seriously get over it, it's done, and you're the one screaming.

I understood both sides of the issue when it was announced months ago.

Again, ya'll need to lighten up.

It really is just a dollar.

Not in Wisconson

EDIT: I do however appreciate the idea that the top 16 rated people in any state come walking in the door with fur coats eating strawberrys as big as hand fruits.

So "it's just a dollar per person per event" then?

I think it's just $1 to cover everyone for the entire year.

I'm paying in Sacagawea coins

For me it would end up at around $40-$60 per year. You can keep screaming at me that "it's just $1" but it's really not.

Sure I could just play less tournament/league pinball, and that's probably what will happen. But that sucks.

There are people in our local league stating that they will stop playing or play less as a result of this too.

This will hurt the world of competitive pinball (numbers wise). Not sure how anyone thinks it will actually help and bring in more people. That is laughable. If you disagree that is totally fine, but the "it's just a dollar" argument is old. It's also more work for the TD's and will complicate things.

I would like to propose a nickel per ball plunge tax. We can pass a jar around. Maybe we can put a sad picture of Josh on it....

DonationJar (resized).png

Or .. you could maybe take it out of the prize pool before awarding the prizes. And then the winners are paying for it anyway, but they don't have to hold on to it till the end of the year. Wait.

I feel like I've heard that before. Over and over.

We read about 25 pages of cheeseheads telling us they were taking their cheddar, going home, and starting their own $1-fee-free WPPR knockoff system. Cause how difficult could that be? Those Chicago ripoff artists threw this shit together in 10 minutes and now are trying to scam us all for a buck!

For months we waited with baited breath for the big unveiling!! And now it turns out it was too hard?

So we are back at square one and get to hear all about it again. Sweet.

Maybe the $1 per person per tournament fee is cheaper and easier than coming up with your own system? Who saw that coming?

You big fancy New York carpetbaggers flashing and waving your $1 bills up in the air at us poor Wisconsin folk. With your big fancy city location pinball in your back door with your big fancy high class pinball tournaments.

Let them eat WPPRs!

mmmmmmm.... cheddar.

For the "just 1 dollar" folks.

Imagine your cell phone company called you.

Phone company: "Hey, we are going to start charging you $1 for every phone call you make. But don't worry it's just a dollar!"
You: "But wait, that is going to really add up. I make a lot of calls."
Phone company: "No no no you aren't getting it. It is just 1 dollar."
You: "But I like to make calls, its fun and that is what I spend most of my free time doing."
Phone company: "I don't think you are getting it, it's really just 1 dollar. You can just make less phone calls if the $1 per call is a problem. We actually expect more people to use our service with this new plan!"

You went too high Josh. Had you asked a penny per person you would have been set.
Remember the days when you could get CDs for a penny.

IMG_2805 (resized).JPG

What the hell are you talking about? Is the phone company going to have State/National phone call championships at the end of the year that pay out all the collected funds to the best phone callers? This is some seriously bat-shit crazy analogy.

Want to play pinball? Yes? Great, that doesn't cost any extra, have a fun time.

Want to leverage ranking database that pits you against other players and leads to championships if you're good enough? Well going forward you're going to have to kick in to the prize pool -- like you would at almost ANY tournament that has cash prizes.

The fact that this bothers people is baffling to me.

What does the average pinball player pay to play pinball?

My guess is I send roughly about $300-400 a year playing in tournaments if not more.

This analogy really doesn't work for me. I play in at least 10x more IFPA events than phone calls.

Imagine you only make 5-30 phone calls a year.

Yeah, you'd bitch a little, but would you REALLY give a shit?

Pretty bad analogy bro. Maybe try using cars.

If you start playing in as many tournaments as you make phone calls... let us know. Until then, this is the worst analogy of the week...

Here, let me try.

Imagine you played in pinball...uhhh...I mean darts tournaments, like 20 times a year. You paid to enter, and tried to win. If you did ok, you'd sometimes win a few bucks.

Ok, you follow me?

Now, imagine you suddenly had to pay $1 extra in every one of these tournaments.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your world would come crashing down upon you.

It's just like that

lol the point was to try and help out the "it's just $1" folks understand how it in fact is not "just $1". But I'm glad my awesome analogy took away from the point. Admittedly it was a lazy analogy.

It will cost me $50-$60 per year. If you want to explain to me how that is actually just $1, go for it.

I'm glad that the money is not an issue for most people here. The fact is, it will affect how much I (and others) play competitively which sucks IMO. Josh claims it will help bring more people to the hobby. I disagree. That's really it.

I think we all understood it's $1 a tournament.

That means if I played a tournament literally every day of the year, it would be $365.

I'm sorry man. I'm not trying to poverty shame anybody, like the late great "I don't have 100 pennies to rub together" Cornelius used to say, but it's just not a lot of money over the course of a year. We are talking about competitive pinball here, which is really a cheap hobby.

$1 isn't a lot of money.
$30 isn't a lot of money.
$60 isn't a lot of money.
$365 isn't a lot of money.

Most people could sock that away from a couple paychecks for the whole year if they wanted to sacrifice a couple trips to Appelbee's. The "it's only a dollar" crew will never accept that this is a lot of money, and it's just not a convincing argument. Better off going with the "you are ruining pinball!" or "you are discouraging scrubs!" angles, which at least make sense.

The missing piece here is that PLAYING COMPETITIVELY and PLAYING IN IFPA SANCTIONED EVENTS are not mutually exclusive.

I play competitively with my brother all the time messing around on location, at Stern, or in one of our houses. None of that involves this $1 fee that is specifically designed for events that desire IFPA sanctioning.

If this impacts how often you will play competitively, you've been playing competitively for the wrong reasons. Don't let the IFPA have that much influence on how/where/when you play "competitive pinball".

$60 per year will impact how much you do one of your favorite things? How can you afford internet access to post this? Shouldn't you be out right now working a second job to make ends meet? Apply at Taco Bell, work ONE DAY, quit. Bam! 60 nights of competitive pinball paid for.

Sorry man, I'm not buying what you're selling. It's impossible to care about something so much that you post endlessly about it, yet not care enough to pay $1 a week to do it.

Let me try. Imagine the beef industry decided to charge $1 every time you ate beef. And it didn't matter if it was grade B chuck, or the finest ribeye money can buy. $1 every time you were beefing out. You try to eat from the beef buffet, and the beefy beef bouncer blocks you until you pay your beef fee.

Of course you pay. Because you love beef.

Considering sending that guy a buck a week to never post again. Or maybe we could all take turns? Seems like a steal.

Yancy, aren't you the one that said this?

Anyway, I will try my best to make more money so that I can be on the same level as you guys. Yes $60 is a lot of money to me. I guess I should be ashamed.

These are the jokes, kid.

I'm ultimately going to support the IFPA regardless of this $1 fee (the IFPA is a great organization, well worth this fee) and I do agree...it's just $1...

That said, I do not agree with how they are distributing the $1 (I wish they just kept it for administrative cost and applied it to marketing pinball). The fee is designed to make competition pinball more exciting for alpha players (which the IFPA guys are). Best I can tell, it does little to help spread pinball or encourage new people to play in tournaments (it's already hard getting new people to play in tournaments).

As other Tourney directors are doing, I'm just going to take it 100% out of any prize pools we would have done (we did away with prize pools last time I hosted an event anyway, just used a low entry fee to cover food and trophies, so no big deal).

They do (although it's <$1). The industry marketing groups for beef, pork , milk, nuts, and many others charge all the growers fees to advertise food you were going to eat anyway.

Best to find a good cargument on this one, because the analogies stink today.

pinlink, I don't feel sorry for you because you are lucky enough to play in 60 events a year. In GA, we have about 12. I run one of the biggest leagues here and everyone spends $50 a year to buy pizza for the players.